Simple UX tweaks to keep ’em coming back
We’ve all been there before. You launch a great product, build an online store, and get people to come to your site. Your sales start off great but start to tank…along with your traffic. No one’s coming back!
Why?! Most customers treat you like takeout from that seedy little Chinese place on Lamar. You are there to fulfill an immediate need, but they don’t want to “love you long time.” Brand loyalty does not exist yet so they will not return to your site unless they get another guilty hankering for orange chicken and egg rolls.
Increasing repeat sales to one-time buyers dramatically increases your profits (how does a 95 percent increase sound?). For e-commerce sites, it’s often the simple fix of being intentional about your customer user experience before, during, and after the purchase.
Use dynamic content to increase both average order value and customer frequency
I’ve got 3 words for you: Amazon. Related. Products.
It’s why they are so successful and it is why I’m so broke. Amazon has mastered the art of not only helping you find what you came for, but also finding everything under the sun related to that product.
There are great ways you can customize the UX around what your customer is looking for: Homepages, product pages, category pages, search results, and the shopping cart page. The awesome part is you don’t have to have the massive size of Amazon to take advantage of this.
- Dyno lets you customize your copy to fit the traffic source.
- Unbounce helps you customize personalized landing pages while running A/B variation tests to deliver a tailored experience.
- Boomtrain powers your dynamic feeds and helps you harvest and apply machine learning data.
Even if your customer doesn’t buy the related product on their first visit, it lets them know that you have what they need. It implants a trigger that says, “Remember that place you got X? Those folks have this other product you need as well.”
Optimize your checkout process
How is this for a juicy tidbit? 66 percent of your hard-won shoppers…who have said “YES!” to your product… are going to abandon their cart. The average customer who comes to you is extremely impatient. They want an easy experience and if they do not get it from you, they will move on to someone else *cough*Amazon-one-click-checkout*cough*.
Check out how your traffic works its way down your conversion funnel. If you find where most customers bounce then you have found where your UX sucks.
Your conversion funnel
- Do you have products that are easy to find and select?
- Is it easy for your customers to find variations on a product?
- How hard is it to add products to the shopping cart?
- Does your customer receive a notification that their product has been added to the cart?
- Are there unneeded barriers in your checkout process?
- Do you require customers to create an account?
- Do you cookie customers to auto-populate their information?
- Do you have a one-click checkout option?
- Is it easy for your customer to checkout?
- Are there any steps you can remove?
- Do any of the above answers change for your mobile traffic?
Making the checkout process streamlined and easy will pay off exponentially you will both increase your first-visit customer conversion rate as well as the likelihood that the customer will return.
Maximize your invoice/receipt/shipping confirmation e-mails.
Your customer’s inbox can be a powerful and personal tool that brings back a customer. Deliver a friendly, personalized, customer-centric personality to your customers.
- Offer discount codes with an expiration date that brings them back to the site.
- Start or promote your referral program.
- Show them products related to the one they purchase.
- Help them discover completely new products.
- Make sure that they know that your company is here to take care of them.
Avoid being spammy at all cost. However, if you play your cards right, follow-up e-mails can be a powerful method of building your company personality and driving customers back to your site. STAND OUT! Everyone sends digital receipts. Make yours provide value and engage the customer.
Improve your customer UX
It costs far less to keep a customer than to go find a new one. Improving your Customer UX is a fantastic way to increase your retention and activation rates. Create a relationship with your customer and treat them right.
